Wednesday, December 4, 2013

(UPDATED) (OT) Japan's Upper House Special Committee on National Security Just Passed the State Secrecy Protection Law; It Now Goes to the Floor

The bill no one in the ruling coalition or in the opposition seems to have a firm grasp of to ask intelligent questions and give intelligent answers has just passed the Committee vote by the majority (4:08PM, December 5, 2013).

According to the party newspaper of Japanese Communist Party (tweet), an LDP member of the Committee submitted a motion to stop the discussion, and the Committee chairman declared, in the middle of discussion, that there be a vote. The majority voted for the bill, and the Committee was adjourned in confusion.

There is no filibuster in Japan's Upper House. The US Senate had one until very recently when Dirty Harry effectively ditched this long tradition of more than 200 years.

The bill immediately goes to the Upper House session. LDP and the coalition partner Komei Party seem to want to pass the bill within today, the last day of the Diet session.

Rushing the bill full of holes doesn't make sense politically for the ruling coalition. Frogs are to be boiled slowly.

Citizens have been gathering around the National Diet building, and I see more net citizens tweeting that they are on their way to the Diet building, even if that means they are "terrorists" (according to LDP's Ishiba) shouting and demonstrating against the government.

Citizens report a sudden increase of the police in the area surrounding the Diet building.

Japanese Communist Party wants to submit the parliamentary motion of non-confidence against the cabinet in the Lower House, which may result in the resignation of the cabinet and the Lower House election. But it needs 50 members of the Lower House to submit the motion. There are only 8 Representatives from Communist Party, and unless the second largest party in the Lower House (Democratic Party of Japan, 57 Representatives) joins Communist Party, that is not going to happen.

NHK says it didn't broadcast the committee proceedings, because there was very little interest from Japanese citizens.

One logic repeated by LDP members of the Diet is: "Since we won the election, we have the mandate. We can do whatever we want, and that's what the voters want us to do."

Does it sound familiar?

By the way, US Vice President Joe Biden (expert on foreign relations and national security, said the Japanese media) was in Japan on December 3rd. I'm sure he instructed Abe very well.


Anonymous said...

"Yes Abe, your mouth goes here."

Scott said...

Well shoot. I guess it's add good as law seeing as how the Japanese government operates. This is very worrisome.

Why didn't the minority parties make a bigger noise about all this sooner? It was never a secret they wanted to ramrod it through before the end of the session. We knew the intentions of the Abe regime long before a week ago when this story really took off. I blame the media and the DPJ for giving up their majority so easily to Abe before their time was up.

Unknown said...


The LDP needs to read an international newspaper or two. Morsi tried to hide behind that same logic in Egypt to do whatever he wanted. At some point, the average person realizes 'the law' has been usurped to work against them - not for them.

Notice how the media always parrots the qualification "the democratically-elected president" when they refer to Morsi? The implication is that 'the people' violated the law and broke the rules by kicking out someone they didn't want running things.

I expect nothing less from the Japanese press when they ram the secrecy laws through. Obama uses it all the time: "We're a nation of laws and law-abiding people," even though the legal system is rigged against freedom and democracy. In Japan, it will be "It's the law now. It can't be helped."

Unlike Egypt, Japan doesn't even have a military that might miraculously back the people and throw the rats out. Post-war Japan was probably the U.S.'s first success in a long line of 'Deathcamps for Democracy' efforts.

Anonymous said...

TEPCO is very unhappy about the media..called press releases damaging..and complaining." The article is inappropriate as a press report which is supposed to be accurate, fair, and responsible, and we regard the article as a one-sided media report seriously lacking in fairness." TEPCO is certainly behind the Secretcy Law!

Anonymous said...

Vote for fascists, you get fascism! Why would anyone here in Japan be surprised by this? They voted for these assclowns and now they are getting what they deserve!

Anonymous said...

Anon at 6:45PM, majority of voters didn't vote for them. Half of them didn't bother to vote, and less than half who did, voted for LDP/Komei.

The US "voted" for liberal Obama and still managed to get fascism.

Anonymous said...


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